BFI NETWORK alumni at Cannes 2025
From Harry Lighton to Akinola Davies Jr, a number of UK filmmakers making a splash with their debut features at this year’s Cannes are alumni of BFI NETWORK.
With the film industry currently gathered at Cannes Film Festival, we’ve been catching up on the impressive list of BFI NETWORK alumni who are making waves there this year.
A number of UK titles selected to world premiere at the festival, as well as featuring in the Great 8 Showcase, are from BFI NETWORK alumni. Features include Pillion (wri/dir: Harry Lighton) and My Father’s Shadow (wri/dir: Akinola Davies Jr.) screening in Un Certain Regard, and Learning to Breathe Under Water (dir: Rebekah Fortune), Mission (prod: Lin Waite, Kate Byers and Lowri Roberts), Retreat (prod: Michelle Stein) and The Son and the Sea (dir: Stroma Cairns) in Great 8.
Our flagship talent lab BFI NETWORK@LFF boasts several alumni in this year’s festival, including Harry Lighton (2017), Akinola Davies Jr (2019), Rebekkah Fortune (2023) and Lowri Roberts (2023). Stroma Cairns and Harry Lighton also took part in BFI NETWORK x BAFTA FLARE mentorship programme.
Writer-director Harry Lighton’s feature debut Pillion, starring Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård, played to rave reviews in Cannes. The film follows a timid man swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive. Pillion follows Harry’s BAFTA-nominated BFI NETWORK short, Wren Boys.
Writer-director Akinola Davies Jr’s feature debut My Father’s Shadow, starring Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Godwin Egbo and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo is a semi-autobiographical tale set in 1993 Lagos, following an estranged father and his two young sons as they journey through the city amid political unrest. Akinola was part of our 2019 flagship talent lab BFI NETWORK@LFF, joining a select cohort of emerging filmmakers.
Read about some of the fantastic UK shorts from these filmmakers below and find out about the UK names we’re proud to have supported through our funds and professional development programmes, all thanks to National Lottery funding, which continues to support BFI NETWORK.
BFI NETWORK funded shorts from filmmakers in Cannes 2025 include:
Writer/director: Charlotte James
Producer: Lowri Roberts
Funded through the BFI NETWORK and Ffilm Cymru Wales Beacons Short Film Fund, Doss House follows best friends Len and Bambi on a night out at a party in a South Wales Valley town. The evening takes a dark turn when an older guy, Parry, corners one of the girls and his threats quickly escalate. This short film explores the dangerous consequences that can arise when teenagers venture into an older crowd.
Director: Rebekkah Fortune
Writer: Laura Turner and Rebekkah Fortune
Producer: Clare Pearce
With support from our partner Film Hub Midlands, Pennywort centers on a young woman on the desolate Lincolnshire fens who, after receiving an Asperger’s diagnosis, discovers an unexpected talent for animation. This artistic awakening unleashes her unique, magical individuality. The film blends live-action and animation to tell a story rich in folklore and fantasy, offering an empowering and entertaining narrative about self-discovery and neurodiversity, infused with magical realism.
Writer/Director: Mark Jenkin
Producers: Lin Waite and Kate Byers
Supported by our partner from Film Hub South West, Hard, Cracked the Wind is a dark drama that plunges into the power of voices from beyond the grave. It tracks a young Cornish poet who acquires an old writing case engraved with her own initials. Upon deciphering a faint poem inside, she unwittingly summons the previous owner from the afterlife. Haunted into completing the verse, she becomes trapped in an endless cycle of creation and demise, as the cursed case moves through time, claiming one owner after another. Shot in atmospheric black and white 16mm, the film evokes a chilling, supernatural dread.
Director: Harry Lighton
Writer: Harry Lighton and John Fitzpatrick
Producer: Sorcha Bacon
Wren Boys was supported by our team at Film London. It follows a Catholic priest in rural Ireland on St Stephen’s Day as he drives his nephew to visit a maverick gay inmate in prison. The film delves into the complexities of tradition, evolving attitudes towards sexuality, and the subversion of expectations within religious and social contexts in a changing Ireland. The ‘Wren Boys’ tradition subtly underpins this exploration of personal morality and societal shifts.
Director: Moin Hussain
Writer: Tom Benn
Producer: Michelle Stein
Supported by Creative England via the BFI NETWORK, this short horror film is set in Manchester in 1990. It follows Alice, who finds herself roped into babysitting for her hysterical Neighbour. She soon discovers that the children claim to feed a nightly visitor from Hell. Caught between escalating gangland tensions, local superstition, and her own struggles with drug withdrawal, Alice must decide whether to abandon her new wards or stay the night to face the terrifying truth.